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Sharon takes the helm
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ARIEL SHARON took control of a tense Israel yesterday, promising to make peace with the Palestinians if they abandoned the bitter uprising he was elected to stamp out.
At an emotional handover ceremony at the prime minister's office, the 73-year-old hawkish former general took over the reins of power from Ehud Barak, whom he defeated in a leadership vote a month ago.
The 11th person to serve as prime minister in Israel's nearly 53 years of existence, Sharon told reporters he was ready to meet Yasser Arafat provided the Palestinian president put an end to more than five months of violence.
Eager to avoid the tensions he raised with Washington in governments past, Sharon swiftly accepted an invitation to meet US President George W Bush at the White House on March 20. Sharon said he expected to outline his peace ideas then.
Israel's parliament, the Knesset, voted 72 to 21 in favour of Sharon's coalition “unity government" on Wednesday night and the burly rightist Likud party leader was sworn in immediately afterwards.
Sharon's coalition enjoys a firm 73-47 majority in parliament. But its 26 cabinet ministers, including ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis with their own demands, could prove unwieldy.
Labour's Shimon Peres, 77, who will be back as foreign minister, came under fire from friend and foe alike who questioned how as a proverbial weaver of deals with the Arabs he could join forces with a man Arabs perceive as a warmonger.
Sharon is reviled by Arabs for his 1982 Lebanon invasion and championing of Jewish settlements in Israeli-occupied lands.
The current waves of voilence, which have killed more than 400 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, were triggered by Sharon's visit to a Jerusalem site holy to both Muslims and Jews.(SD-Agencies)
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